The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener

Author:Rachel Keener [KEENER, RACHEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9781599951867
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2009-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVII

Everything back at the Crooktop camp was dead. The plants were tilled back into the ground. Even the rot was gone. Only a few migrants were left. The ones that had stayed behind to prepare for next spring.

“We’ll meet back at the fire trout stream,” Trout said. “Nobody should be expectin’ us back now. Stay off the mountain. Don’t go near your grandpa, or any place he likes to be.”

I promised to stay hidden, and started walking through the ditch that ran by the road. Cars would pass me and I’d duck low, hiding myself in the brush. I was thankful Della lived on the outskirts of the valley, in a trailer park where none of Father Heron’s people would ever go. She lived in a single-wide, the lowest of all trailers. But it was a mansion in the eyes of her mom, because Della had spent much of her childhood playing on the dirt floor of a garage. Before Della’s dad died, they had all lived in a home owned by the coal company. It was a cute little home with blue shutters and a front porch that they could live in as long as her dad worked the mines. Della couldn’t remember living there, though when we passed it she always waved to it. My real home, she called it. After her dad died, her momma and all five children were homeless. They didn’t have any family on Crooktop to take them in. So the church did.

For a little while they lived in the sanctuary, earning Della the nickname Church Mouse, at least until she grew up and went wild. Eventually the preacher convinced a rich man to move his lawn mower and give Della’s mom an old garage. The garage had originally been attached to the rich man’s home, but he had built a new garage, and cut and moved the old one to the far end of his property to store his lawn mower in it. Everybody pitched in to divide it into two rooms. One bedroom and a general room. The rich man agreed to allow electricity to be connected to the garage from his house. So they were able to hook up an old stove for Della’s mom to cook on. And the folks on Crooktop donated items they no longer wanted—a rusty bed, a dresser without knobs or handles, a broken radio that would only work when it stormed, an old washtub for bathing. So there were six people, piled in a bed and on the floor. A dirt floor with two braided rugs. There was no running water, but the rich man allowed Della’s mom to carry water back from the wash-up sink in his basement. But only if he or his wife was there.

Over the years things had gotten better. Especially after the other four children escaped. They could remember the little house with the blue shutters. And they had to outrun the garage that stole them away. The three boys found work and started sending a little money home.

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